Paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse that were stolen in a robbery from an Italian private museum in March have been recovered by police.
The works were taken from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation near the city of Parma in the north of the country. According to a previous social media statement by the Carabinieri—Italy’s military police force—they carry a total estimated value of €9m.
The Carabinieri have said that four men entered the foundation, housed in a rural villa south of Parma, on 22 March and removed Les Poissons (1917) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries (around 1890) by Paul Cezanne and Odalisque on the Terrace (1922) by Henri Matisse. The thieves took less than three minutes to carry out the theft, partly because the alarm system was activated.
According to The Guardian, a statement from the Italian Carabinieri’s art recovery squad based in Parma said the paintings were found during searches ordered by prosecutors but gave no further details. The investigation is continuing; the Magnani-Rocca Foundation and Carabinieri were contacted for comment.
The Magnani-Rocca Foundation is one of the most significant private art collections in Italy, housing works by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Francisco Goya. It was founded in 1977 by the collector Luigi Magnani and opened to the public in 1990.
